"spotted dick" news and stories

Spotted Dick. Photo: Slashfood.

A Welsh municipality has renamed a British pudding because workers tired of the snickers caused from its double-entendre name.

Spotted Dick is now Spotted Richard on the menu in the government cafeteria in the North Wales town of Flintshire, the Daily Mail reports.

"It just seemed political correctness gone mad," Klaus Armstrong-Braun, a local politician told the Daily Mail. "There was a sign in the dining room for things like rice pudding and then this Spotted Richard -- I had to ask what it was. Whoever has changed it needs to be told they are being silly."

As someone who lived in England for three years, I have encountered many a food with a shocking name.

I'm pretty sure the English are naming things "bangers and mash" and such on purpose, but there are many foods with dirty names that don't seem as self-aware.

For your pleasure and education, I present to you:

The List of Foods that Sound Dirty but Aren't

Every language has its own idioms, or words/phrases that make sense to native speakers but that don't really translate well into other languages. That applies to food as well.

There are lots of foods that make perfect sense to native eaters that do not work when exported. Spotted Dick, from England, is only one example. Over at the Commercial Archive, they've rounded up a whole group of idiomatic foods, including Shitto sauce and Six Faggots in Gravy.

The list is really funny. You should check it out for a good giggle. There was also at least one American product that is questionable, even by American standards: Sweet and Salty Nut granola bars.

Are there any that you know about that didn't make it on this list?

Source

Did you know that England has a national saint? We probably planted a flag and nicked him from someone else but what the heck, good ol' St George. Sadly, unlike the Scots and the Welsh, the English tend not to celebrate their national patron. But not in the food blog world, oh no!

This year Sam of Becks and Posh (an English woman abroad) and cheeky scampster Monkey Gland of Jam Faced (an Englishman who has been abroad, but is now back) have created the first What's For Pud? event. Bring out your spotted dicks, swirl the cream over the trifle or whisk together a tub of custard to smoother the crumble as it is puds all the way this weekend. If you have a blog you can write your own post and join in the fun. Otherwise check their websites for the recipe links.

Remember though this is England we are talking about. Nothing Scottish, nothing Welsh or Irish thankyou.

Behind all the other odds and ends, stacked up alongside some canned tomatoes, was this lone, canned Heinz Treacle Pudding. Generally known as cake and not pudding on the US side of the Atlantic, this traditional British dessert is a round of sponge cake that is saturated with a golden syrup known as treacle. Treacle is a type of light molasses that is left over during the sugar refining process. It makes what would otherwise be a plain and fairly dry dessert moist and sweet, so the combination of treacle and sponge is a time-honored British favorite. Come to think of it, the combination of treacle and nearly anything is a British favorite.

The label on the cake promised that it was microwaveable, meaning that I could avoid a 30 minute stove-top steaming just to eat it. I put it on a plate, covered it with a microwave-safe bowl and hit "start."